{"id":42369,"date":"2016-07-08T06:44:58","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T10:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=42369"},"modified":"2016-07-08T06:44:58","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T10:44:58","slug":"shari-redstone-takes-control-of-viacom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=42369","title":{"rendered":"SHARI REDSTONE Takes Control of VIACOM"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"hed\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.0.3\">\u201cIT\u2019S A COUP D\u2019\u00c9TAT WITHOUT A DOUBT\u201d: IS SHARI REDSTONE MAKING POWER MOVES AT VIACOM?<\/h1>\n<h3 class=\"dek\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.0.4\">No longer out in the wilderness, Sumner Redstone\u2019s daughter appears to be calling the shots over his fortune\u2014and his companies.<\/h3>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"dek\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.0.4\"><label data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.0.6.0.1.0:$Author.0\">BY\u00a0<\/label>WILLIAM D. COHAN<\/div>\n<div class=\"dek\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.0.4\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"dek\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.0.4\">\n<figure class=\"component-article-main-image landscape aspect-3-2\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.0\">\n<div data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.0.0\">\n<div class=\"component-responsive-image-full\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.0.0.1\">\n<div class=\"pinterest-link-container\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.0.0.1.0\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.0.0.1.0.0\"><img srcset=\"http:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/5761b74a44f7e758217b39a8\/master\/w_768,c_limit\/sumner-redstone-shari-redstone-bill-cohan.jpg\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1\" \/><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"main-image-caption\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.0.1\">\n<div class=\"credits\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.0.1.1\">Left, by Wolf Heider-Sawall\/Laif, right, by Ryan Stone, both from Redux.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"content drop-cap\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.1.0.0.2\">\n<section class=\"content-section\" data-type=\"section\">Soon after <strong>Sumner Redstone<\/strong> evicted Viacom C.E.O.<strong>Philippe Dauman<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2016\/06\/viacom-exec-payday-philippe-dauman\">from his trust last month<\/a>, questions regarding the 93-year-old media mogul\u2019s competency were raised anew. Redstone may contend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2015\/05\/sumner-redstone-health-fortune\">that he will never die<\/a>, and he may also enjoy the libido of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2016\/03\/sumner-redstone-legal-battle-final-days\">frisky teenager<\/a>, but it is unclear whether he has the acuity of mind to make the decisions he\u2019s supposedly been making about the future of his $5 billion fortune, as well as the three companies that he controls: Viacom, CBS, and National Amusements, Inc., a Boston-based movie-theater operator that functions as his holding company.<\/p>\n<p>The central question, of course, is whether Redstone is actually calling the shots himself, or if <strong>Shari Redstone,<\/strong> his onetime estranged daughter, is propping him up long enough to engineer her own deliberate palace coup. At stake here is not only the future leadership of Viacom (Shari Redstone openly detests Dauman, her father\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9, who is known within the company as \u201cP. Diddy\u201d), but also the future direction of CBS and Viacom themselves: Will they be sold after Redstone dies? Will they be recombined under the control of <strong>Les Moonves,<\/strong> the CBS chairman and C.E.O., as some people speculate? Or will the Redstone family continue to control the two companies through their 80 percent voting stake in each, just the way Redstone, a former tax lawyer and graduate of both Harvard and Harvard Law School, designed things?<\/p>\n<p>Recently, <strong>Fred Salerno,<\/strong> a longtime director of both Viacom and CBS, and a former chief financial officer of Verizon, asked to visit with Redstone to perhaps get some clarity on the matter. Salerno had just been appointed Viacom\u2019s lead independent director and he believed that he and <strong>William Schwartz,<\/strong> another Viacom director, owed it to the company\u2019s shareholders and board members to determine whether Redstone was acting on his own free will when he removed from his trust and the National Amusements board both Dauman and <strong>George Abrams,<\/strong> his longtime attorney, and <a href=\"http:\/\/subscribe.ft.com\/barrier\/logic?location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Ffastft%2F2016%2F05%2F24%2Fredstone-appoints-2-new-members-to-trust%2F&amp;referer=&amp;classification=conditional_standard\">replaced them with people with ties to Shari Redstone<\/a>. (In May, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2016\/05\/sumner-redstone-lawsuit-dismissed\">a Los Angeles judge ruled that Redstone was capable of making his own health-care decisions<\/a>. \u201cThis dispute is not about Shari Redstone,\u201d <strong>Robert Klieger,<\/strong> Redstone\u2019s lawyer, noted recently. \u201cIt is about Mr. Redstone\u2019s right to have the individuals he wants and trusts managing his assets upon his death.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>Salerno inquired about his visit to Redstone\u2019s assistant, but he heard back from <strong>Michael Tu,<\/strong> a partner in the Los Angeles office of Orrick, Herrington &amp; Sutcliffe. Tu told Salerno he would consider the request \u201cseriously,\u201d but he also asked that Salerno provide him with an agenda for the meeting. Salerno replied with his belief that he and Schwartz should have \u201cunfettered and unfiltered access\u201d to Redstone as they have always had in the past. He also objected to the idea of having to write up an agenda, but he did so as requested, with the first item being \u201cGreetings and pleasantries about our shared experiences over decades together as colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"callout small col-md-pull-1 col-lg-pull-1 col-xl-pull-1 has-pullquote\" data-type=\"callout\">\n<div class=\"embed pullquote\" data-type=\"pullquote\">\n<blockquote><p>\u201cTHIS WILL GO DOWN AS THE WORST EXAMPLE IN CORPORATE HISTORY OF SOMEBODY HIJACKING A PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANY WHEN THE TRUTH COMES OUT.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Salerno also wanted to chat about whether Redstone really intended to block the sale of a minority stake in Paramount, the Hollywood studio, that Viacom had been exploring, or whether, in effect, Redstone\u2019s recent written pronouncements on this topic, including calling Paramount his \u201cbaby,\u201d were really simply an example of his daughter\u2019s influence over him. (On Friday, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/sumner-redstone-visits-paramount-lot-902860\">both Redstones visited studio chief <strong>Brad Grey<\/strong> on the Paramount lot<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>I e-mailed Tu late last week to see if the meeting between Salerno and Redstone had been scheduled. The visit seemed like the logical next step in this demented drama. After all, as a corporate-governance and fiduciary matter, shouldn\u2019t Salerno, a longtime Viacom director, be able to meet with Viacom\u2019s largest and controlling shareholder to determine whether his recent directives are coming from Sumner himself? Instead,<strong>Mike Lawrence,<\/strong> the chief reputation officer\u2014I kid you not\u2014at Cone Communications, a Boston P.R. firm, responded on behalf of Tu. \u201cThese are internal Viacom board communications and we are not going to be speaking about them publicly,\u201d he wrote. And no meeting has been scheduled.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad-container\"><\/div>\n<p>In an even more bewildering plot twist, however, Salerno has since taken matters into his own hands. On Tuesday evening, he sent a two-page personal letter to Sumner Redstone in which he admonished, \u201cit is alarming that your representatives refuse us the opportunity to talk with you, express our perspectives, share our friendship, or understand directly from you what your wishes might be and why.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After attempting to alleviate any concern that Dauman and other company officials have been attempting to sell Paramount \u201clock, stock, and barrel . . . in the middle of the night and hide it from you,\u201d Salerno appealed to his a longtime friend with a question that has been plaguing innumerable investors, employees, and litigators: What the hell is going on here? \u201cWe want to understand what is happening with you,\u201d Salerno concluded. \u201cAnd I can assure you that you can count on us to stick up for you and for the many other Viacom shareholders you have served so well for so many years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"content-section\" data-type=\"section\">The dillydallying, according to someone close to the matter, suggests that Shari Redstone is indeed controlling the situation, and perhaps her father\u2019s whims, from behind the scenes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat without a doubt,\u201d this person told me. \u201cThis will go down as the worst example in corporate history of somebody hijacking a publicly traded company when the truth comes out.\u201d (<strong>Nancy J. Sterling,<\/strong> a spokesperson for Shari Redstone, responded, \u201cIt is absurd for anyone to accuse Shari of manipulating her father. Sumner makes his own decisions.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>But few should be as worried about Shari Redstone\u2019s rise as Dauman. If she had her way, presumably, she would replace him as C.E.O. of Viacom in a nanosecond. \u201cThat may or may not be the worst thing in the world,\u201d this person continued.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2016\/06\/shari-redstone-power-moves-viacom\">http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2016\/06\/shari-redstone-power-moves-viacom<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"details-wrapper\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.0.6\">\n<div class=\"contrib-wrapper\" data-reactid=\".3dzpjns5xc.1.1.0.6.0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIT\u2019S A COUP D\u2019\u00c9TAT WITHOUT A DOUBT\u201d: IS SHARI REDSTONE MAKING POWER MOVES AT VIACOM? No longer out in the wilderness, Sumner Redstone\u2019s daughter appears to be calling the shots over his fortune\u2014and his companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}